Chapter Text
"THREE...
TWO...
ONE...
G- Hey! You didn't even wait for 'go'!"
Amir's complaint fell on deaf ears. From where he sat, restlessly bouncing his leg at the speed of sound, he had the best seat in the mall to watch as the Drifter and Arthur clashed like swords on a battlefield.
Not that they used swords. It was Tuesday, after all.
Which was to say, these bouts of violence were common enough that you could find one of the Hex testing their mettle against their timeless time traveler during down time. Not that Amir was one of them. He had avoided dropping into the ring versus the Drifter.
But not Arthur.
Jeez, it was like the guy thought he had something to prove or something.
Amir watched, eyes slightly glazed over as he thought about what kind of sandwich he'd make for lunch, as the Drifter—as Ardent did what they did best.
Arthur lunged. Ardent swooped low, and in a fluid spin that was so fast not even Amir could keep up with the motion sent their team leader flying—okay, maybe flying was a bit too strong. Staggering.
This was why Amir danced around every invitation to go toe to toe with Ardent. He was perfectly capable of publicly humiliating himself without outsourcing a time traveler to trounce his ass in less then a second, no thank you!
…
He did like to watch though.
NOT in a creepy way.
He wasn't ogling like- like some lecherous weirdo! He was just… arbitrating the matches. There was nothing wrong with that. He was being a good team mate. It was important that he watched Ardent swivel like a spinning death machine, muscles flexing under their skintight suit. He was not staring at her arms.
Or her ass.
Or his thighs.
Hnngh.
Thighs.
Thighs of which were currently pinning Arthur to the ground and threatening to pop his head like a watermelon.
Arthur slapped at the ground after a moment of struggling and Ardent lifted gracefully away, allowing him to stand and reset.
He rubbed at his neck, expression stormy.
“Again.” Arthur said.
Ardent went still for half a second too long, then he grinned. To Amir, it looked forced.
“You wanna get stomped again so bad?” Ardent drawled, radiating a confidence that made Arthur bristle. Ardent glanced Amir's way. “If you would?”
“Huh? Oh!” Amir scrambled upright. “Round two, starting! Three, two, one, go!”
At opposite ends of the dingy clearing of the food court, the two soldiers squared up like characters in a Road Warriors game. Arthur took a low stance that made Amir's back ache just looking at him, while Ardent opted for something more casual—almost too casual. They stood straight but loose, bouncing on her heels just like her Gauss did whenever they idled too long. To an outside observer, it looked like they weren't taking the match seriously.
The tension reached a critical breaking point—if this was actually a Road Warriors game, the players would have already started spamming crouching kicks at each other—and then finally, they launched toward each other.
Amir wasn't a fightingologist. But he knew Arthur moved like a soldier. All military efficiency and Gods save the Prince, that sorta stuff.
But Ardent—Ardent was something else. A soldier too, but one who read all the manuals and did all the tutorials and got all the upgrades and then learned how to hack into the source code to figure out all the enemy NPCs health values and damage vulnerabilities. It made Arthur look like he was jiggling his power cable to lag-switch and failing.
It couldn't have been more then twenty seconds before Arthur hit the ground, hard enough that Amir winced before he remembered their techrot infused bodies shrugged that damage off like it was nothing now.
Ardent just stood there, boot to Arthur's chest. Round two to player one.
“Hot stuff, innit.”
“Yeah,” Amir said, breathlessly. He shook himself, head whipping around to look where Quincy had seamlessly slid himself into the scene next to him. Sneaky ass sniper. “I mean, what.”
“Y'heard me.” Quincy said, with a sidelong, knowing grin. “Ain't no crime in admirin’.”
Aha! Amir thought, but it is a crime if it's me.
Quincy, blissfully unaware of his sad internal dialogue, watched the two sparring partners reset with a curious look. He waited until Amir started to relax before he spoke again.
“Would be even better if she was outta that stupid suit,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially. “They are proper fit under all that future spandex shit, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh.” Amir said, normally. A cold, uncomfortably tight feeling squeezed at his chest. “So you- you and-? You're-?” Amir forced himself to stop talking. Why did he ask questions he didn't want the answers to?
There was a pause. It was agonizing, and seemed to go on for at least five years from Amir's perspective, and all the while he could feel Quincy sizing him up and he knew he was being weird and he wasn’t supposed to be weird here that was the whole point-
Quincy's gaze briefly flicked over to their Drifter, who was trying to grapple Arthur into a headlock, before he shrugged and said, “Nah. It ain't like that.”
“Oh!” Relief washed over Amir so rapidly he felt faint. “Okay! Phew.”
Not that he like, cared, or anything. Quincy and Ardent could—you know. If they wanted. He would just be over here. Feeling like he was dying inside. It was cool. But they weren’t! Thank Sol and Lua above. There was surely a platonic explanation for this feeling.
A loud thud startled Amir from his normal thoughts and normal feelings—Quincy didn’t even flinch—and he tuned back into the sparring match.
They were both on the ground now. Ardent had a tenuous grapple held, but Arthur was struggling hard. The protoframes were stronger then the average human, but Ardent’s eyes were bright with Void energy. Technically, that was cheating but before Amir could think to call foul, she glanced up at him.
Amir froze. Those Void haunted eyes pinned him in place and made his insides seize up in—fear? Maybe. Ardent’s mouth was parted, panting through gritted teeth, lips curling into a smile as they watched Amir watch them.
He suddenly felt very hot under his techrot collar.
However, this was enough of a distraction for Arthur to wrestle an arm free and elbow Ardent in the face.
Quincy erupted into laughter as Ardent swore up and down in a language none of the Hex could parse. Arthur rolled smoothly to his feet, brushing dust from his armor.
“Alright, then. That’s enough for today, I think.” Arthur said, breezily. “I’ll ignore that you cheated—this time.”
“Phuck you,” Ardent shot back, wiping blood from their mouth. Yeesh, Arthur got him right in the nose.
“Get cleaned up, we’ve got work to do.” Arthur motioned to Quincy and he groaned, but fell in step with their leader as they walked toward the garages.
Ardent stayed sprawled out on the dingy mall floor. They’d stopped moping at the blood oozing from her nose and it streaked redly down her face as he stared up at the sky through the gaping holes in the mall’s ceiling. The glow in their eyes had gone out. For a moment, they looked endlessly old and tired.
“Y’still there, Amir?”
Amir jerked to life. “Uh-yeah?”
“Got any wet wipes? A hanky?”
Ardent tilted his head to look Amir’s way. Their bangs were plastered to their forehead with sweat and a flush of exertion persisted even now, coloring her cheeks faintly pink and their lips were very red from more then just blood.
Stop staring at their mouth.
Amir jerked his gaze up to her eyes.
That was worse.
Even without the unnatural touch of the Void, Ardent’s gaze was singular and piercing. Their eyes were dark, could have been any color or none at all. To Amir, they were pits he just kept on falling for—into. Falling into. Eyes that were narrowing with confusion as he just stood there, not answering.
“See somethin’ you like?” Ardent asked, head turned to the side quizzically.
Amir opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He closed it and tried again. Nothing. It was like all coherent thought had fled the scene, leaving him with nothing but a low buzzing sound that was rapidly building up in his ears, and he wondered if he was about to suddenly discharge and fry everything within twenty meters again.
He was being weird, again.
“I-” he croaked out. “I-I-”
Stop stuttering. Say something.
But he couldn’t, and Ardent was looking at him like he was a puzzle and he was terrified she was mere seconds from figuring out what he’d been ignoring and denying all this time. He kinda wanted her to. No, he didn’t. They would laugh at him.
“Amir?“ Ardent struggled up on his knees, clumsy after the beautiful, fluid movements of her fight. The tight, black skinsuit shifted as it hugged her body and Amir’s mind abruptly went blank.
“Igottagosorryyouknowhowitissorrybye!” Amir bit out rapidly, zipping off in a wild arc toward the safety of his arcade. He didn’t turn to look back, shame biting at his ankles.
Coward.
Chapter Text
Amir all but crashed into his room, sending scattered Fables and Frontiers campaign notes flying in every direction. He fumbled blindly for the door lock, missed it seven times in a row, and gave up. His back slumped against the door. Good enough.
Ardent turned their head, looking up at him from the floor.
Lips parted.
Fuck. His hands scrambled for his armor plating. It felt like it got harder and harder to remove pieces each time he tried, but Sol damnit he needed it off now, now, now.
The pieces around his crouch fell away with a satisfying clunk.
Guilt made his hand tremble, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from wrapping his fingers around his already straining cock. He outright whined at the touch, hips jerking. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and let his imagination run wild.
Ardent, sweat damp and panting on their back. Ardent, flexing an arm above her head, skintight material bunching up over defined musculature. Ardent, on the floor, lips parted—his mind snagged on that image, mentally looping like a bad glitch.
He was so wet he was dripping onto the carpet. The sound of his hand working—faster, faster, faster—was obscenely loud. God, he hoped no one was looking for him after he beat his hasty retreat. What if- What if Ardent followed him back here—What if she heard him-?
He came with a choked moan.
Couldn’t have been more then a minute, minute in a half if he was being generous. This used to embarrass him. But like most of the changes the techrot made to his body, he got over it and adapted.
Which is why he didn’t stop.
Hissing through the first wave of over-sensitivity, knees shaking as he thumbed over the head of his cock—he watched in his mind as Ardent lifted off the floor onto their knees again and Amir was closer. Much, much closer. Close enough that Ardent just had to lean in to-
Wait, he thought. That would hurt his knees after a while, wouldn’t it?
His fantasy gamely supplied a pillow, but Amir decided it wasn’t good enough. The scene jarred, jumped tracks, and now they were in Amir’s bed—but, oh, god, when was the last time he did laundry or cleaned the energy drinks off his desk or the used tissues from the garbage can-
Focus.
On their hands and knees—in his magically, spotlessly clean bed—looking up at him with those same hooded eyes that bored holes through his very soul, softened now.
"Would be even better without the fit though."
Quincy’s voice comes unwittingly to mind. Usually, Amir would nope out and go run a cold shower. Quincy was the last person he wanted cropping up in his sexual fantasies, thanks, but his mind caught on the implication and—ope, Ardent is abruptly naked.
He only has his imagination to go on, but it's never failed him before. Ardent is strong and beautiful, muscled and soft. Their head is nestled against his thigh, and he can’t see much from the angle, but the vast expanse of revealed skin makes his hand stutter as he races toward the finish line again.
Ardent leaned in, cheek just grazing the side of his cock, nuzzling-
Hnngh-! Amir bowed over. His legs shook as cum dripped down his fingers and onto the carpet—oh gods, the carpet—he locked his knees, gasping through the pleasure and then the pain as he stubbornly kept pumping his fist. He wasn’t done, he wanted- no, he needed more.
-nuzzling against it and smearing precum across their lips. She didn’t seem bothered by it or the changes techrot made to his, uh, equipment. Which he knew was a product of his own mind, but nothing seemed to phase Ardent. He carried himself with a confidence Amir would never understand. It was downright obscene. Almost as obscene as her taking his cock straight to the base in one fluid movement-
Too fast.
Slow it down.
Slow, sensual licks. Tongue dragging over the length of him, letting him weep into her waiting mouth—letting him jerk and shake and bite out little noises that soon became pleas.
Amir slid down the door as he spread his legs wider, fucking up into his hand. He didn’t dare open his eyes. Reality would be too sharp, and the Ardent of his mind’s creation was soft and indulgent and didn’t leave him begging for long before wrapping those perfect lips around him, taking him in and- and- shit.
Amir sobbed aloud then bit his lip hard. He was right there—right at the edge of relief, caught between the most acute shame of his life and gut-wrenching arousal.
In his mind, his hands were buried in their hair. Pulling only because he couldn't help it, because they made him feel so good. It wa an easy enough grip to break free from as Ardent pulled off his cock, saliva dripping down her chin. His lips curled into a smile and their voice was raspy, fucked out.
“See somethin’ you like?” Ardent asked, head turned to the side knowingly.
Amir came so hard he buckled over. He had to slap a hand over his mouth to silence the keen that ripped from his throat. He pumped his fist over his spent cock, whimpering into the carpet.
The Ardent in his mind sat back with his come dripping down her face. She crawled over his body to kiss him ever so sweetly on the lips. Abruptly, the fantasy vanished.
Amir shuddered out a breath that teetered between a laugh and a sob. Too unrealistic.